Promoting Sheffield's Heritage

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When I started Timewalk project I said I would give it 5 years and that 5 years is up now, so time to take stock. I have enjoyed myself and sometimes ended up way beyond my comfort zone giving interviews and talks and writing reports. There are a lot of amazing people out there, but I knew that when I started as that was my main aim was to champion them. There has been some great achievements and some great things in the pipeline but are the powers that be really aware of the great unique heritage that is round every corner in this city?

Sheffield Rotherham Canal 200 years old in 2019.

I started looking at ways of promoting heritage after reading a letter sent by the Arts Council that stated Sheffield wasn’t interested in Heritage or Culture. I couldn’t understand how they reached that conclusion, but looking at the Council’s website gave me a clue, as well as looking at Google maps. According to Google Cannon Hall was in Meersbrook Park, and Bishops House not even in the park and somewhere along the road. This wasn’t helped by the fact that the Council website listed Bishops House as being in Derbyshire. Of the Top 10 places to visit on the Council website 3 were not in Sheffield. The information suggested too that the Peak District National Park started outside Sheffield Boundaries not that part was actually within city boundaries. Manor Lodge despite its brand new Discovery Centre and craft workshops was not even mentioned.

Manor Lodge Banqueting Tower.

I remember asking a Councillor why the Council didn’t promote places like Manor Lodge and was told they were short of money. I asked how much money it took to add an entry to their website. I didn’t get an answer so maybe that is why the Arts Council felt Sheffield wasn’t interested in Heritage.

Advertising for Heritage events was poor partly due to the fact that many organisations didn’t have an online presence, or if they did it was frequently a website that someone forgot to update. The list of organisations was also problematic as some that were still listed had closed and others had formed but weren’t listed. The only way to get any idea was to go to the Central Library and pick up leaflets and then either scan them in or write out an add. As I found more leaflets it got really time consuming as so much had to be typed in to a calendar of events. It was a great relief when more groups started on Facebook and on Twitter. As I could just click and forward to my page or retweet.

Art Deco relief on Central Library

When I started not only did people not know of events in the city centre, they didn’t know of events in their neighbourhood. As we started mapping old buildings across Sheffield and researching them it became obvious that Sheffield history books miss out a lot, and are downright wrong in some places. Even some of the listed buildings are dated wrongly and often older than Historic England says they are. Many pubs that are listed as Victorian are Georgian. Many important historical buildings have gone because there was not enough research into their importance or consideration for the historic character of an area.

Le Grand Depart, Le tour de France Meadowhall

The Grand Depart in 2014 was a game changer for Sheffield’s heritage in a variety of ways. The Yorkshire Festival which led up to Le Tour meant many organisations got funding and advertising. Organisations such as Friends of Porter Valley, Friends of Wincobank , Sheffield Cathedral and Museums Sheffield. But what also occurred to everybody was the lost opportunities to market Sheffield to the world that could have happened if Sheffield had been more coordinated. A chance meeting with a Council officer from marketing led to an offer of a meeting room where several heritage groups could get together. This was the birth of Joined up Heritage, which is now a Consortium .

The Council has a Welcome to Sheffield site which lists some of the Heritage sites and events. It also recently began to list some Heritage venues suitable for conferences. There is more to be done but things have really moved on in 5 years though sometimes when you think of the distance still to go it’s easy to forget the triumphs.

We have the beautiful restored Samuel Worth Chapel at the general cemetery, Grenoside Reading Room, significant Roman archaeology at Whirlow Farm, the buying and restoration of Zion cemetery, the restoration of the Wheel at Abbeydale plus new visitors centre, the opening of the WW2 farm at Manor Lodge, Lyceum Theatre upgraded, both Cathedrals, the Fire and Police station now a National Museum with hugely expanded visitor numbers, and the amazing Wadsend Cemetery which from unknown is on every Councillor’s lips. Events that used to have a couple of people and a dog now have to ticket events because otherwise they are over capacity.

Wardsend Cemetery in Springtime.

Heritage Open Day, that previously had one entry if we were lucky, has turned into the biggest HOD event in the country. It has brought together businesses grassroots heritage the Civic Society and the Universities in one great collaborative expression of our heritage. It has also had an impact outside Sheffield in that not only does it bring in visitors it has inspired other places to organise their own HOD. Sheffield’s heritage is very definitely back on the map.

However some of the same problems remain. Arts and Lottery funding is lower for Sheffield than elsewhere. Developers are still being allowed to encroach on Conservation areas with disastrous results. Some ancient buildings have been lost, an old farm cottage in Tinsley, an old barn in Walkley, the old dairy farmyard and cow stalls at Norton, Loxley Chapel, Travellers at Wadsley Bridge, to name but a few. Many more are planned to be cleared, facaded or totally eclipsed by the plans for retailing in the City Centre, even though Major retailers are failing every week or abandoning their presence in the high street. Community assets are being sold by the Council and others are being left to rot by absentee owners from outside the city.

Old Town Hall

There has to be a plan drawn up to protect and conserve and utilise our unique heritage, and an understanding by Sheffield Council and businesses why it is important to the economic and community health of the city. It isn’t about a group of elderly men grumbling in the corner about how things used to be, or turning every old building into a museum. It’s about a pride in our history and the way our city developed. It’s about walking round the corner and seeing an unusual building and having a great coffee there. It’s about a tourist or a worker feeling what’s special about the city and being literally in touch with the past. No tourist wants to visit a brand new skyscraper that blots out the view of what’s unique, or go shopping in shops that only have the facade left. They want to feel what it was like to be a shopper there in the past. Give them a bland shiny interior and it is just the same as they get at home in a thousand other cities.

There has to be a plan on how we present our history to locals and tourists alike, but no point having a plan, if an important landmark that tells so much of the story is demolished to make way for empty office blocks or empty student flats. No point in saying that is where it used to be, before they put a shop on it and then knocked that down, and now there is an empty building that no one uses or particularly likes. Let’s think about what the place will look like after it’s gone and realistically whether losing it will help or hinder how we market our city. Let’s not replace that which has lasted for 100s of years with something that will be demolished in 30 after many years of crumbling to bits. Let’s use the old buildings to tell our city’s story past, present and future. It’s a history to be proud of. Not hidden or swept away. Yes it looks messy and has several different styles of architecture and many buildings have changed use several time over but that is how city’s grow and evolve, keeping the useful older buildings, and adding in new to the mix.

Cambridge Street, Bethel Sunday School

So do I stop now and leave it to others and go back to my research in the various archives? It’s very tempting as my life has been very busy over the last few years. I certainly need to change my website as it has developed a contrary life of its own. As for filling out the events calendar with over 2’000 events a year I am finding it hard to keep up. Photographing historic sites is a bit like painting the Forth Road Bridge in fact even worse as before I have got to the end places that I photographed at the beginning need updating. Entries to my blogs are spasmodic and don’t have as many guest posts as I would have liked. Likewise the photos on my Facebook pages now featuring a proto Timewalk Rotherham site. Recent research into the owners of Meersbrook Hall has proved fascinating and I’d like to do more.

Samuel Shore Meersbrook Hall

But despite my original promise to myself to give it 5 years and walk away there is so much to be done re promoting Sheffield’s heritage and the communities it is important to. Plus I don’t think the Council and the National funders have got the message yet. I think that all the heritage lovers in our city still need to have their voices heard so for now I will continue passing on their messages.

Losing publicly owned heritage buildings is not only economically damaging but also damaging to the health and well being of a community. Heritage is part of the anchorage of a community when the upheavals of factory, pit, or farm closures have left communities with a feeling of loss.

Mount Pleasant Sharrow. One of Sheffield’s most prestigious buildings sold by SCC to private developer despite alternative community scheme.

English councils are selling off 400 publicly owned buildings a year. To add to that are closures of churches, working men’s clubs, and local pubs. For those on lower income public spaces and buildings are the only places they can afford to use. In the case of historic buildings and sites it also incorporates a history of ordinary people like themselves that goes back generations.

Manor Lodge, after decades of struggle now a popular destination.

Children growing up in social housing are more likely to suffer from depression and poor self esteem than children from families in same income and same hardships who live elsewhere. Research has found that lonely elderly people have a 31% higher risk of death, and that each older lonely person costs health and social care services up to £6,000 over 10 years. They are 1.8 times more likely to visit their GP, 1.6 times more likely to visit A&E and 3.5 times more likely to enter local authority-funded residential care. But it is not just the elderly who suffer from loneliness, 40% of 16-24 years olds say they feel lonely. 400,000 children and young people are in contact with the health service for mental health problems. The number of “active referrals” by GPs is a third higher than two years previously. There is a sharp increase in children seeking help for depression and anxiety.

Herdings Heritage & Community centre. Originally farmhouse

If people have nowhere to meet as a community, people grow more isolated, more anxious. People stay indoors, and areas begin to show neglect and there is a rise in vandalism, racism and violent crime. Sheffield has a lot of great green spaces but in housing estates like Gleadless Valley

Since the removal of wardens and kids clubs the area has become litter strewn and prone to anti-social behaviour.

Ancient cruck barn & farmhouse Concorde Park. Age unknown but medieval site. Barn not open to public as used as store

At Manor Top, DeHood has taken over the old school as a community gym, and cafe, as well as being a drop in centre for recovering addicts. The crime rate is down 60%, arson has halved. The savings to emergency services, social services and health services must be quite substantial Yet the site is to be sold to create a new shopping centre. There is a suggestion that a new place could be found but part of the success of the club is the building’s strong historic links to the community.

High Hazels hall. Once used as museum now in poor repair & only partially used in High Hazels Park

Public buildings that have a long history have an advantage that newer buildings without a history haven’t. It gives older people a chance to talk about their experiences to the young and builds up trust. Most older public buildings are geographically as well as emotionally central to the community. The history and appearance gives the area an identity that is unique to their area.

The loss of historic buildings matters to ordinary people. Over 11’000 people signed a petition about protecting the character of the Devonshire Quarter in Sheffield. In Sheffield there are approximately 130 Heritage groups and organisations. Many organisations have several hundred members and have been around for over thirty years. Feelings run deep in Sheffield but finding a similar response from National heritage organisations and funders is prone to failure.

Our heritage and culture has the lowest level of funding in the country. It was found that for the north to get the same Arts Council England funding per head as the capital it would need £691m more in the 2018-22 funding round, and HLF funding is not only lower in Yorkshire than elsewhere it is lower in South Yorkshire than it is in the rural Yorkshire dales. Research would suggest that this is down to a National and local cultural snobbery. Recently the Government granted £7.6m to Wentworth Woodhouse whereas most grants through the Heritage Lottery fund rarely reach the £1m level in South Yorkshire. It is hard to get funding for “working class” northern heritage. Perhaps that is why the Council had no active plan for protecting and utilising buildings like Birley Spa, or Meersbrook Hall, and the medieval Concorde barn is used as a store, and instead of accepting the community based plan for Mount Pleasant it was sold to a private developer. Most of our prominent heritage buildings are there due to pressure by local groups such as the Lyceum, Abbeydale Hamlet, Kelham Island Museum, Bishops House, Wincobank church, and the General Cemetery to name but a few.

Abbeydale Hamlet, Gifted by Greaves to the city, after decades left to rot was restored.

Sheffield Council cut its preventative health budget by £880,000 for 2018/19. In January 2018 Sheffield Council predicted an overspend of £20m in their social care budget. All the community properties put together, sold and put into the Council’s coffers would only make a slight dent in one year’s required income. How many £m would they save over the years by transferring them to the community rent free? Birley Spa has an asking price of £70’000. How much will it cost the community and health services to see it go, rather than put it back into community use?

Meersbrook Hall, once home to Internationally famous Ruskin Museum

Friends of Meersbrook Park have calculated that a community asset transfer of Meersbrook Hall would save the Council £65m per annum by removing their need to maintain and heat the building, and further savings in staff time, administration and unforeseen costs such as damage repair.

The tenacity of heritage groups in Sheffield is amazing. It took 6 years for the Grenoside community to get HLF funding to fully repair and restore the 18th century reading room, but meanwhile they continued cleaning out the rubbish and landscaping round the building. As Grenoside’s 1st listed building it has brought back a sense of community and gave them space for their community.

Grenoside Reading Room now community owned and run.

Our communities have to be the primary focus of any Council’s planning decisions, especially if their decisions may result in the loss of our culture and impact on our health and well being.

Samuel Shore was one of the 18th century’s influential reformers. Yet it would appear from his obituary that few knew the extent of his involvement. .

The Shore family appear to have started on their road to being Sheffield’s wealthiest family by being quarry men and stone masons. Three Shore brothers are mentioned in a document as demolishing the stonework of Sheffield Castle. A descendent of one of those brothers appears in documents as owning the first cementation works in Sheffield in 1700. Samuel’s father married a rich heiress from Liverpool. By the time Samuel Shore was born in 1738 the Shores were one of the richest family in Sheffield.

The Shore family were founder members of the Upper Chapel built to house dissenters who split from the established church. At the time of its building in 1700 they called themselves Presbyterians but over the years their beliefs changed to what became known as Unitarian. Unitarian beliefs were not tolerated and Unitarians along with Catholics were unable to worship.

Education for dissenters was problematic as they were banned from the Universities so Samuel was sent first to a French College in London which taught science, and then to a college in Brunswick in Hannover for three years. In 1759 Samuel married the heiress Urith Offley and with that marriage gained possession of the Norton Estate.

In 1761 Samuel became Sheriff of Derbyshire and a local magistrate. The posts were unusual in that under the law non conformists such as Samuel were refused entry to the Universities, politics and government posts due to what was called the test act. Samuel did not take the test yet became Sheriff.

The Test act excluded from public office (both military and civil) all those who refused to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and refused to receive the communion according to the rites of the Church of England. Those who would not conform were also barred from the Oxford and Cambridge Universities.

Samuel now had position and status that most manufacturers in the North did not have, or most dissenters either. Samuel Shore knew London well, was multi-lingual, and with a keen interest in science. As a Unitarian Samuel was forbidden by law the right to worship. Samuel began a fight to change the law, bring about electoral reform and establish equal rights for all under the law. This was dangerous talk in Britain. It could be construed as treason. But Samuel was gaining respect throughout Yorkshire and beyond.

One good friend was Joseph Priestley. Priestley had tried unsuccessfully for a job in the Upper Chapel but had been turned down. A lifetime relationship formed between them with Priestley dedicating one of his religious books to Samuel. Priestley’s research led to the discovery of oxygen but Joseph Priestley’s radical views would eventually lead him into trouble with the government.

In 1774 Shore backed their mutual friend the Reverend Theophilus Lindsey to set up a Unitarian Chapel in Essex street London. At the opening ceremony Priestley, Shore, and Benjamin Franklyn are among the guests. Though Unitarian chapels were illegal at the time Samuel Shore was friends with the Attorney General who turned a blind eye to it. Through the chapel Samuel Shore was to meet William Smith from Clapham, and in 1779 they formed a committee to fight for the abolition of the Test Act. At about that time Benjamin Franklyn having met Thomas Paine, the great radical writer and inventor offered him sanctuary in the USA. It is not known if Paine and Shore’s paths crossed in London but they shared a number of mutual friends so it seems likely he at least knew of Paine before Paine became famous or infamous for his republican views.

In 1775 Samuel Shore’s sister married Thomas Walker a cotton mill owner from Manchester. Thomas Walker was very much a radical thinker with strong links to the Lunar Society in Birmingham Samuel had many links including Rev Samuel Blythe junior, from Bishops House, who had sold off the Blythe’s lands in Norton to the Shores, and Benjamin Roebuck in 1759 to go to Birmingham and set up a meeting house. In 1780 Joseph Priestley shared the pastoral responsibility with Blythe who was growing blind. In the same year Samuel Shore. supported by Major Cartwright, he became chair of the Yorkshire Association.

Cartwright called for annually-elected parliaments, equally-sized constituencies and manhood suffrage. Cartwright recognised manhood suffrage would involve enfranchising the lower orders, recognising that those without landed property had a right to a vote. Cartwright also called for the abolition of under-populated rotten boroughs and their replacement as constituencies by more populous parishes. He also believed that open polling should be replaced by the secret ballot. In order to achieve these democratic reforms, he suggested that a campaign of petitioning be launched so that the force of popular feeling be brought to bear on the corrupt, self-interested ruling order.

William Wilberforce became an Independent MP for Hull and bought a pew in the Essex Chapel and joined the Yorkshire Association. . In April 1780 Samuels friend Cartwright also helped establish the Society for Constitutional Information, which Samuel became vice chairman of. Granville Sharp joined the organisation. Other members included John Horne Tooke, John Thelwall, Granville Sharp, Josiah Wedgwood, and William Smith. William Smith became MP for Sudbury in Suffolk in 1784 the same year that the Yorkshire Association financially backed William Wilberforce’s campaign to become MP for Yorkshire.

Clapham was steadily becoming famous for evangelism and Methodism. It is not known when Samuel changed his London address to Clapham but gradually his links with Clapham were more evident. The Clapham Sect became known as the heart of the anti slavery campaigns led by Methodist Selina Hastings otherwise known as the Countess of Huntingdon. In 1773 , Phillis Wheatley 20 years old became famous when her first book of verse, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, was published, by Selina Hastings, In publishing it, Wheatley became the first African American woman and first U.S. slave to publish a book of poems. Selina introduced Phillis to high society where she proved that the common belief that Africans were somehow inferior and could not be educated was undoubtedly false.

Samuel’s motives for being in so many committees for constitutional change is obvious. As a Unitarian and from a Northern manufacturing family there was very little opportunity for him to obtain high offices. There were no MPs for Sheffield. In 1736 there were around 7’000 inhabitants. By 1801 there were 60’000. Those eligible to vote for a Yorkshire MP were few and also meant a long journey to vote in York. But equally strong was the drive to make all men equal under the law with the right to worship how they chose.

As chair at a Midland dissenters meeting Samuel Shore was to say.

“It is not the province of the Civil magistrates to direct, or to interfere with the religious opinions or practices of any members of the State, provided their conduct be not injurious to others.

That all the subjects of the State, conducting themselves in an equally peaceable Manner, are equally entitled not only to Protection in the possession of their civil rights, but also to any civil honours or emoluments, which are accessible to other subjects without any regard to their religion or practices.

Desiring nothing for ourselves but the same equal and liberal treatment , to which we think all other persons in a similar situation, are equally entitled, it is our earnest wish that an equal participation in all civil privileges may be obtained for Dissenters of every description, to whom nothing can be objected, besides their religious opinions or practices , and who can give that security for their Civil allegiance which the state ought to require.

That the protestant Dissenters of this country, have always had reason to complain of unjust treatment ie being disqualified to hold offices of Civil Trust or Power, though their behaviour has ever been peaceable, and loyal, and though they can even boast peculiar merit, as friends to the present government.

That it becomes Dissenters, as Men feeling their own disgraceful situation and the opprobrium which that reflects upon the country, to adopt every constitutional method of procuring the redress of their grievances and thus retrieve the honour of the nation.”

In 1786, Shore was a member of the Application Committee that applied to Parliament for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Act and when that motion was defeated, he resigned from his post of High Sheriff in protest

Also in 1786 a young printer called Joseph Gales moved to Sheffield to take over the newspaper. The previous paper had been a local paper and not a very large circulation. Joseph had a vision of a more radical paper, which Samuel was keen to encourage, persuading William Wilberforce to support the paper as that meant the paper was exempt from tax.

Samuel and his friends and relatives set up branches of the Society for the Abolition of Slavery across the country. Joseph Gales support with the rising popularity of his paper proved invaluable to publicising their cause.

In Samuel’s personal life after seven years as a widow Samuel married Lydia Flower from Clapham and moved into Meersbrook Hall.

Meersbrook Hall, Meersbrook Park

In 1788 Samuel Shore as chairman of the Society for the Abolition of Slavery together with Rev Willkinson, John and William Shore, Mr Tudor, and Mr Watkinson (master cutler) and a Dr. Sutcliffe set up a committee to organise a petition. Copies of the petition for people to sign were set up at Tontine Inn, the Cutlers Hall, and John and William Shore’s bank.

“In thus endeavouring to rescue thousands of their innocent and unoffending Fellow-Creatures (innocent and unoffending at least to the Natives of this Country) from the miseries that are the necessary attendants upon such a commerce, your petitioners are, as men, influenced by the feelings of humanity; as members of a free community, by the true principles of just and equal liberty; and as Christians, by a desire to act consistently with the Spirit of that most excellent religion, which does not confine good will and benevolent actions to a small part of the globe, or to any particular description , or complexion of men, but extends them to the whole human race.

Your Petitioners therefore, humbly solicit this honourable house to proceed to a full and thorough investigation of this important subject: and if the most weighty and urgent reasons cannot be opposed to those advanced by your petitioners; and if those who are more immediately concerned in the question, cannot prove the Slave Trade from Africa to be agreeable to the dictates of humanity, conformable to just ideas of Liberty, and consistent with the precepts of religion, that then this honourable house will take such steps as in their wisdom may be deemed necessary, for the abolition of that inhuman and disgraceful traffic“.

The petitions strengthened William Smith and William Wilberforce’s hand to speak against the abolition of slavery. In Gales Paper and elsewhere the pressure for boycotting sugar from slave plantations gained momentum. Many abolitionists were also campaigning for reform. Joseph Priestley, Thomas Paine, and William Smith had all visited Revolutionary France. Samuel’s Brother in Law had strong links to the new French Government. The ideas of a more equal society were understandably exciting to many in Britain.

The government was getting exceedingly nervous, not helped by the publication of Paine’s Rights of Man, putting forth republican views, and the rise of the Corresponding Societies (more political societies for change) Samuel Shore had helped Joseph Gales set one up at the Free Masons Hall in Paradise Square. The new Corresponding societies were seen as radicalizing the “riff-raff” Many Unitarians including William Smith openly praised the Revolution. Joseph Priestley said :-

“The glorious revolutions in America & France have propagated truths which will never be extinguished for Truth is like a spark of Fire which flyeth up in the face of those who attempt to tread it out.”

However the fire that happened was in Joseph’s house, meeting house, and all his scientific notes and equipment burning in Birmingham lit by a mob who stormed the homes of dissenters. Samuel called for calm in Sheffield but a celebration of the revolution took a violent turn when many of the towns people attacked the debtors prison letting the inmates out, and smashed the windows and furniture of the Duke of Norfolk’s agents house and then as the army presence swelled up went on the rampage at Broomhall home of the Vicar Wilkinson, smashing windows and furniture and books and attempting to set fire to the House. Having failed to do so they set fire to six of his hay ricks. But the protest in Sheffield was not really about revolution but attacking those they deemed responsible for enclosing Common land.

The corresponding societies were enthused by Thomas Paines Rights of Man and helped publish special cheaper versions so all could read it. A million copies were sold. The corresponding societies were not however preaching violence but what they saw was a return to constitutional rights.

That it is no less the Right than the Duty of every Citizen, to keep a watchful eye on the Government of his Country; that the Laws, by being multiplied, do not degenerate into Oppression; and that those who are entrusted with the Government, do not substitute Private Interest for Public Advantage.

That the People of Great Britain are not effectually represented in Parliament.

That in Consequence of a partial, unequal, and therefore inadequate Representation, together with the corrupt Method in which Representatives are elected; oppressive Taxes, unjust Laws, restrictions of Liberty, and wasting of the Public Money, have ensued.

That the only Remedy to those Evils is a fair, equal, and impartial Representation of the People in Parliament.

That a fair, equal, and impartial Representation can never take Place, until all partial Privileges are abolished.

That this Society do express their Abhorrence of Tumult and Violence, and that, as they aim at Reform, not Anarchy, Reason, Firmness, and Unanimity are the only Arms they themselves will employ, or persuade their Fellow-Citizens to exert, against Abuse of Power

In 1792 Thomas Paine escaped to France having been warned that the government were planning his arrest. A trial was held in his absence. The government argued that Paine’s work inflamed the populace and distributed radical ideas to those without the experience to understand them. Paine was found guilty. The verdict was seen by the government as legitimising their repression of radicalism.

In April 1793 Gales chaired an open meeting in Sheffield on parliamentary reform. At the meeting it was decided to start a petition in support of universal suffrage. Gales eventually presented Parliament with a petition signed by 8,000 people from Sheffield. By May 1794 the Sheffield Register was selling over 2,000 copies a week. Such a large circulation was extremely unusual for a provincial newspaper in the 18th century. Sheffield was now seen as the most radical town in Britain.

The government was also worried about the growth and tactics of the parliamentary reform movement in Sheffield. At a large meeting of the Sheffield Society for Constitutional Information, chaired by Henry Redhead Yorke, a resolution was passed that abandoned the policy of petitioning Parliament. William Pitt and his government feared that this meant that reformers in Sheffield would now resort to violence.

In 1794 Thomas Walker was prosecuted for treasonable conspiracy. Although the treason charge against Walker was dropped he was brought to trial on a seditious conspiracy charge in 1794 in Lancaster together with ten defendants but the evidence was proved to be falsified and they all walked free.

Joseph Gales wrote articles in the Sheffield Register attacking the arrest of reformers. He also mounted a campaign against the suspension of habeas corpus. Gales was now considered a dangerous man and was charged with conspiracy. Aware that he would not receive a fair trial, Gales decided to flee the country. After publishing the last edition of the Sheffield Register on 27th June, 1794, Gales escaped to Germany. It is not known what Samuel Shore felt about Gales. Many have said that Shore was not a republican which was true, but what we do know that it was Shore money that was paid to Gales wife to allow them to escape to America.

In 1807 the aged Samuel Shore formed a Committee to support Fitzwilliam’s son Lord Milton who stood for the West Riding as a Whig. With the Corresponding societies now illegal Samuel formed a new group called the Friends of Reform in 1810 which held a dinner for Samuel’s old friend John Cartwright in 1812.

In 1813 William Smith finally managed to have an act passed that allowed for toleration of Unitarians worship. William Smith visited Meersbrook a number of times. No doubt as Samuel was now in his 70s the journey to London was becoming too much. However there are signs that Samuel had not lost his campaigning spirit.

In 1819 Samuel Shore appears as Chairman at a meeting to protest at the Massacre at Peterloo when the cavalry charged into a crowd of 60,000–80,000 who had gathered to demand the reform of parliamentary representation.

Mr Rawson from Wardsend addressed the crowd

“Gentlemen, I have always been accustomed to consider it to be an inalienable and an indisputable right of the people to meet for a redress of grievances, and that too without any restriction in point of numbers. There are some who may object to public meetings, alleging that they counteract, by their very violence, the cause which they are intended to support. This was not the opinion of our ancestors: if it had been so -where should we have been now? – in a state similar to that of Spain or Portugal. When our ancestors felt themselves aggrieved, they petitioned, addressed, fought, bled, and died for their liberties; and, dying, bequeathed us this right of meeting together on all matters as an heir-loom, to be preserved to our latest posterity, uncontaminated and unimpaired.”

In 1824 Samuel Shore was seen in the news again at a meeting in the Town Hall as President of the Sheffield auxiliary branch of the Anti-slavery society.

Sadly Samuel never saw the Great Reform Act which gave 2 MPs to Sheffield in 1832 or the abolition of the Slave Trade in 1833 as he died in 1828 at the age of 90 at Meersbrook Hall.

His obituary states

” Activity of body, no less than activity and energy of mind belonged to Mr. Shore. He enjoyed through his long life an enviable state of health and that eveness and elasticity of spirit which belongs peculiarly to those who are in constant action, and who have the hope which religion gives. He sunk very gradually into the tomb. He was truly a green old age.”

In the last budget the chancellor announced funding for the key cities involved in the fight for women’s suffrage which is being celebrated this year as it is the centenary of women getting the vote. Sheffield was not on the list. Enquiries have found that this was because Sheffield Council did not apply. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised as the history of women activists in Sheffield is not one that is celebrated. There have been only two plaques put up to women in the city. One at Kelham Island that recognises Enid Hattersley’s contribution and one to Adela Pankhurst in Malborough Road. Mary Ann Rawson’s grave lies in a forgotten graveyard till recently unkempt and was about to be tarmacked over. Most people till recently would be saying “Mary Ann who?”

You might think that having a woman council leader and a woman mayor might have changed things, but women are not always the strongest arbiters of their own cause. Queen Victoria strangely saw women who had a political opinion as “un-natural” and women’s rights whether it be the vote, equal pay, or political spokesperson has a long history of being ignored or ridiculed. But the road to women’s activism which shook the world started in Sheffield.

In 1791 women abolitionists took to the newspapers and the streets to persuade people to avoid buying slave produced sugar. Estimates suggest that they persuaded 300’000 people to abandon sugar. Possibly the first time ethical consumerism was used to make a political point. The size and strength of feeling demonstrated by these popular protests made even pro-slavery politicians consider the consequences of ignoring public opinion. One pro-slavery lobbyist of the time noted that the ‘Press teems with pamphlets upon the subject … The stream of popularity runs against us.’

Women discovered that the newspapers gave them a voice because a letter could be published in the paper anonymously, their speeches reported, their public statements published. In Sheffield the paper that helped enable the ordinary man or woman on the street to be heard was the Sheffield Register. The paper was run by Joseph and Winifred Gales. Winifred was a published novelist and poet. Some people think that she sometimes wrote the editorials. She seems to have supplied poems too. Her main job was running the Newspaper Office and she may have helped as copy editor for some of the less literate contributors. Joseph Gales certainly did. Both masters and workers had a great respect for the Gales. When Joseph had to flee from the country due to charges of insurrection being laid against him, the city moved to protect and Winifred and offered her financial aid to continue. Despite being pressured by the authorities she carried on running the paper, turning away offers to buy it which she saw as a government plot to close the paper down.

Winifred arranged for the paper to be sold to James Montgomery with Joseph’s sisters having a small share. This arrangement no doubt angered the authorities who had hoped for the paper to be shut down. Winifred then packed her bags and took her children and a young apprentice on a perilous journey to Germany to meet up with her husband. The family settling in America where her husband and sons ran several newspapers. Winifred wrote a second novel. In effect the first American novel.

Hannah Kilham nee Spurr was born in 1774. Her mother died when she was 12 and her father when she was 14 . In 1798 she married Alexander Kilham the founder of the New Connexion Methodists, but became a widow soon after. In 1801 she joined the Society of Friends. She supported herself and step daughter by teaching and helped set up two schools for the poor in Sheffield. In 1817 she decided to go to Sierra Leone as a missionary teacher. She produced text books in several African languages and opened a number of schools

Christianity could be brought to Africa, she believed, only by African teachers educated to a high level in their own languages. Before ever going to Africa she worked among the poor in near-famine conditions in Ireland, where she formulated two important principles: that it was as important to educate the children of poor people to feed them, and that no society could be satisfactory unless its poorest members could be consumers as well as workers.

On 26 October 1823 she set sail for the first time to Africa, heading for Gambia when she opened her first two African schools. Some of children she taught had been rescued from slave ships, and were so emaciated as to be practically walking skeletons but they were keen to learn. Without receiving children direct from a ship she said she would never have understood the full vileness of slavery. She went back to Britain to campaign for the education of freed slaves, maintaining that they could not thrive without education. She set up a large school in the Gambia for children rescued from the slave ships. She died while sailing to Sierra Leone in 1832 so never saw the abolition of the slave trade act enacted.

Mary Anne Rawson nee Reade (1801-1887) was born to Joseph and Elizabeth Read, wealthy parents who encouraged her involvement with good causes. Her abiding interest from the mid-1820s to the 1850s was to lead the campaign for anti-slavery in the Sheffield area. Rawson was a founding member in 1825 of the Sheffield Female Anti-Slavery Society, which campaigned for the rights of the slaves in the British Empire The Sheffield society was the first Anti-Slavery Society to campaign not for a gradual and managed end, but an immediate end to slavery. Following passage of the abolition legislation, the society formally ended in 1833.

In 1837 Rawson became secretary of the Sheffield Ladies Association for the Universal Abolition of Slavery, which continued the case for enslaved workers across the world. The anti-slavery organisations run by women were sometimes dismissed as of marginal interest, but recent research has revealed that these groups had a national impact.

Both Hannah Kilham and Mary Ann Rawson’s view of slavery stemmed from their deep religious views. Both worked substantially with the local poor as well as campaigning against slavery, but some felt that abolitionists were ignoring the harsh conditions at home.

On your altars petitions were laid for the abolition of slavery, and were numerously signed, even after divine service, on the Sabbath, in many places; let those altars be now consecrated to a not less holy project. Let the cry of the oppression at your own doors excite an interest, at least, as powerful as that which was called forth by the wrongs of strangers; and let us, at least, have one proof that you are not entirely dead to the claims of domestic misery, and the demands of most holy faith (Northern Star 28 May 1842)

The problems that arose from the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars together with new poor laws were felt especially by the women of the city. The Corn law which kept prices high and the boycott of American trade hit the people hard.

In 1812 a riot flared up across Sheffield and resulting in the local Militia’s arms being smashed up. Described as a petty thief Mary Gibbons was charged with theft and sentenced to several months in Wakefield jail. Closer examination would seem to indicate that Mary Gibbons was working in concert with Leeds Luddites and was in fact the leader of the riot, but local authorities played down the whole riot, possibly because some of the militia had actually joined in. They said it was more about a hungry populace than insurrection. Not much is known about Mary other than she was 48 at the time, lived in Coalpit Lane now Cambridge Street and was wife to a file cutter.

In Manchester in 1819 a peaceful demonstration led by women protesting for electoral reform and against the Corn laws was attacked by cavalry resulting in the 10 deaths including four women and a child. In Sheffield the massacre was loudly condemned. So Sheffield women were not unaware of the risks of protest.

Women were under pressure because of the new poor laws which meant they had to pay to prosecute the father of their child for subsistence and consequently many women ended in the Workhouse. They called it the Bastille. At the same time as Mary Ann Rawson was appealing to the “Christian women of Sheffield” to consider the plight of the woman slave, other women were calling for universal suffrage.

In 1839 the Chartist women formed the Radical Female Association in Fig Tree Lane. A rallying speech was published in the paper.

Women of Sheffield-you are met, perhaps the first time in your lives, to consider the propriety of forming an Association to co-operate and assist your husbands and fathers, your sons and your brothers, in causing the People’s Charter to become the law of the land. Without any apology, I proceed to address you upon the importance of the great object you have in view. You are well aware that there are persons that will say that women have no right to interfere with politics; but I ask is it not high time that every individual in Great Britain, to whom God has imparted reason should immediately study the science of political economy, when it is stated in No. 4 of the Corn Law Circular, that there is one manufacturer in Manchester who has discharged no less than one thousand hands from his employment, who can neither pay school wage, rent, or taxes, and when there are shopkeepers and tradesmen becoming bankrupts, who were dependant upon the above- mentioned unfortunate artisans for their support? Is it not also requisite, I ask, that every woman be conversant with political science, when there are thousands of hard-worked, half-fed, and half-clothed Factory children calling aloud for assistance to break the chains of slavery from their necks? Is it not the duty of every individual in the kingdom to join an Association which has for its object the attainment of the people’s Charter, when there are thousands of wretched and miserable females in this country obliged to commit vice prostitution, and crime of every description, or die in the streets, because their husbands and fathers for want of political power to compel the Legislature of this country to grant free trade, cannot support them as every man ought to be enabled to do out of the proceeds of his own hard labour and industry. Women of Sheffield! To you, then, I appeal. Shall this state of things exist? No! Methinks I hear a host of female voices exclaim, the atrocities of the new Poor Law, and the villainies of the old Corn Law, are of themselves sufficient to call forth the most energetic endeavours to gain the People’s Charter, in order that these and all other grievances may be immediately redressed! Would to God that the magistrates of this land, instead of sitting day by day, and week after week, to pass sentence upon culprit after culprit, would meet in one concentrated spot, and there and then consider the most efficient means of enabling every man in the United Kingdom to support, by his own honest industry, the children would then be a blessing onto him. Having thus given a few reasons out of the many which may be argued to induce you to make the most strenuous of endeavours to assist to obtain our most sacred and inalienable rights, I would impress upon you the necessity of keeping peace, law and order, and of educating your children, by improving their moral powers, and cultivating their intellect, for I am persuaded the time is not far distant, when intelligence and honesty instead of wealth and property, will be the popular standard of all true greatness!

In conclusion I would remark, that with God to help us, and you to assist us the Bible and Justice on our side, neither Monarchy, Aristocracy, nor all the powers of earth or hell can or shall prevail against us. Remember our motto is, “United we stand-divided we fall.”

In Sheffield the women Chartists could not be called middle class. Eliza Rooke born in Lincolnshire and married to a York confectioner who moved to Sheffield. Abiah Higginbotham daughter of a miller and whose husband was a Spring Knife Cutler, Eliza Cavill whose husband was a file cutter and kept the Democratic Temperance Hotel, Kate Ash wife of a spring knife cutler. All their husbands were Chartists too but the women were more often quoted in the press than their husbands. Across the country a third of all those signing the Charter were women.

Male Chartists were unsure about women getting the vote and they dropped the idea from the Charter feeling that it would only cloud the issue. In Sheffield however, it would seem that the men did still back the women. Perhaps in part this was due to the nature of the manufacturing in Sheffield which had a strong reliance on “little Mester” and the whole family being involved including wives, sisters and daughters.

“Mr. Gill next vindicated the claims of the female sex to an equality of rights with the male, and concluded a lengthy and excellent speech by earnestly appealing to his hearers to labour to make it known the glorious principles of Chartism among their kindred and Kind.” 1841

Elsewhere in the country some were suggesting that the female chartist groups were coming to an end and they were glad. Many were worried by the connections with revolutionary France and America. In Sheffield the women shared a letter from French Women imprisoned for their campaigning. A moving letter that in publishing it many male commentators would have called foolish and meddling in international politics that women couldn’t possibly understand. It was not surprising that Flora Tristan, an engraver, and promoter of trade unionism for all would send her letter to Abiah Higginbotham, a spring knife cutler’s wife, secretary of the women’s political association.

“The darkness of reaction has obscured the sun of 1848. Why? – because the storm, in overthrowing the throne and the scaffold, in breaking the chains of the black slave, had forgotten to break also the chain of woman-this pariah of humanity; for after, as before the revolution, she is nothing, and she can do nothing for herself; she is not reckoned as a member of society. She is without a name and a country – her name! It is the name of her master, or the father, or the husband. Her country, whether she be born on the banks of the Tagus, Ganges, Thames or the Seine, it is the country of her master; for she ever bears the law imposed by man.” 1851

As for folding up Sheffield women were coming out strongly with speeches like this.

“Sisters we live in an age distinguished from all preceding times by the intellectual progress of the working classes; the industrious millions have began to think for themselves and have discovered that the great cause of all the evils that effect them is class legislation; a most important sign of the times is the wide-spread contempt with which the working classes now regard the trade of butchery and blood-spilling heretofore dignified with the title of the profession of arms. This augurs well for the future, and affords us a bright and buoyant hope that the time is not far distant when men will refuse to become the hired murderers of their fellow men and when the reign of violence and tyranny will give place to the empire of peace and justice. Sisters, we appeal to you to help your brethren in their warfare against the despotism of class legislation, that we have equal rights and equal laws by the establishment of the People’s Charter as the law of the land. In conclusion, we beg of you never to forget our petition, signed by three millions and a half of the starving people, spurned rejected by the proud aristocrats of England.” Signed on behalf of the female Chartists of Sheffield. Ann Harrison Chairwoman 1842

Many women worked as cutlers and file cutters with their husband or father, and many women took over the business when their husband died. An article discussing stopping women working in the file cutting business came to the conclusion that losing the 300 women in the trade would cause serious economic damage. Attitudes to women in Sheffield by authorities was mixed. A woman Mester in 1847 who complained of being Rattened by a Union man had her rights as a Mester upheld despite the Union man claiming she could not be a Mester as that was a man’s title. In the same year an attempt was made to remove women from the File trade.

“The File Trade- We regret to learn that this trade still remains in a very unsettled state, owing to the majority of the members to stop the working of women and girls at file cutting. There are now upwards of 200 so employed. Of those 170 are the wives and daughters of members of the trade and the rest are widows or orphans of members of the deceased.”

By 1865 the File trade recorded that over 1’600 women and boys were employed. At that time the File trade had the biggest Union in Sheffield although no women were allowed membership.

In 1859 five women buffers were prosecuted for a walk out because of their employers violent attacks on Union men who tried to talk to the workers.. They were described as five Foolish Virgins, despite the fact that they were all married and in their 30s ,and told to go back to work and serve their notice and not to be so foolish. Ironically their employer was the younger brother of Richard Otley a well known Sheffield Chartist.

In 1869 Miners wives from Handsworth were arrested and tried for rioting during a miner’s strike, but it was treated more as just tempers frayed. Women as a political force always had the problems of being taken seriously.

As Chartist protest faded due to electoral reform and the abolition of the enforced high cost of corn , Chartist women in Sheffield regrouped and created a women’s political association. Its members were approached in that year by Anne Knight, a Quaker activist in the antislavery movement who had been at the same abolitionist conference as Mary Ann Rawson in London in 1840. She and Mary Ann were part of a very small female contingent allowed to be present, and despite being major campaigners were forbidden to speak. Anne Knight became convinced that women had to have the vote in order to have their voices heard. She contacted a famous Sheffield chartist councillor named Isaac Ironside who put her in touch with Eliza Rook, one of the women who were on the committee of the women’s political association. She was well known to the women through her pamphlets on women’s suffrage.

Anne Knight encouraged the women to rename it the Women’s Rights Association in 1851 and used her influence and her experience of public relations to help them successfully to petition parliament.

“hope deferred maketh the heart sick,” and we have waited too long, cherished that hope too much, until we have found that we must organise independent of our brothers, and fight our own battle; and proud are we to say that our humble appearance on the field, and the few steps we have taken, have proved satisfactory, for the congratulations we continue to receive from various quarters embolden us to go forward in faith until the accomplishment of Universal Suffrage in its full extent is achieved. Although we agree in the Six Points, we feel convinced that the first obtained will open the road to all. As for your proposition of a seventh, I would rather dispense with it, for our humble abilities are but directed in a course which, if carried out, will not only do justice to us, but be instrumental of much good to society. Abiah Higginbotham February 1851

THE PETITION

“To the Honorable the Commons of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled, the humble petition of the Female inhabitants of the Borough of Sheffield, in the Country of York, in public meeting assembled.

“SHEWETH,-That we the females of Sheffield do approach yourHonourable House will all due respect, to make known our desires and opinions upon a subject which we consider is a right withheld,-but which legitimately belongs to our sex –the enfranchisement of Women. Therefore, we beseech your Honourable House to take into your serious consideration the propriety of enacting an “Electoral Law,” which will include ADULT FEMALES Within its provisions, and your petitions as in duty bound will ever pray.” Signed on behalf of the meeting,

Mrs Abiah Higginbottom, chairwoman.

In 1852 they appointed Anne Knight as their president and began linking other female political associations together becoming the National Women’s Rights Association. It took till 1918 that some women actually got the vote and another 10 years before all women got the vote. Full recognition within the Trade Union movement took quite a while longer. In Present times women registering for the vote has dropped. With half the population of the UK being women. Perhaps Sheffield Council and other local politicians that have overlooked our city’s history, need to realise the debt they owe to Women activists of Sheffield.

“Chartists who abandoned their sisters in their demand for Universal Suffrage and called that universal which was only half- that complete which is incomplete, and not merely a logical inaccuracy, but an injury in a political sense, as they have deserted the interests of the major part of the nation; and in so doing

” Rob us of that which enriches them,

And makes us poor indeed.” Anne Knight 1851

References

Gales Family Papers 1815-1939 Gales Family Papers #2652-z, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Last week I went to an election hustings to ask candidates what their policy was on heritage not because I was expecting instant answers but because not one manifesto I had read really seemed to consider heritage at all. Given the Council policy on heritage is a mere two paragraphs that wasn’t really a surprise. Nor is this a recent thing in Sheffield or dependent on what party controls the council. Likewise the idea of tourism for anything other than festivals or the great outdoors doesn’t seem to be on anyone’s agenda.

Albyn Works

After hearing 5 minutes of each of the six candidates talking about their hopes and dreams for Sheffield it was obvious that none of them had heritage on their mind either as a matter for neighbourhood pride, green policies or economic regeneration. In the end there were 3 of us asking questions about heritage, myself about how with the new planning laws coming in we can protect our heritage against fast track planning decisions and speculative developers. A second questioner asking how we preserve our parks and keep them as a community asset , and a third questioner asking how we can keep our old buildings and develop an improved retail centre which fits in with Sheffield’s unique character and keeps finance within the city and not going to outside developers.

All six candidates stated they felt Sheffield’s heritage was important to them and spoke quite stirringly in favour. However I was left with the thought that whereas every candidate thought it was the right thing to say, they didn’t really understand the reasons why they should. There was mention of Castlegate and the Old Town Hall and how they saw this as a place for re-development but the idea would seem to be bring in developers and that would generate knock on funding for the Old Town Hall and the other old buildings round about. To me they had it the wrong way round. A beautifully restored Old Town Hall and a Castle Park are what would regenerate the area and bring in useful investment. We have around 10 hotels within walking distance of Castlegate. Are they going to come to tall office blocks and student accommodation blocks or to see the ruins of a medieval castle, and a historic building central to Sheffield’s growth as a city?

Old Town Hall Waingate

How would a concentration on office blocks and student rooms help link the other parts of Sheffield’s history together such as the Victoria Quays which is fast approaching its bi-centenary, the unique fire and police station of Westbar, Kelham Island Museum, Cholera Monument and Manor Lodge. Linked together we present a package like no other package in any other city.

Butchers Works once cutlery works now apartments , gallery and workshops

We had a candidate talking about saving buildings as a charitable exercise or a rare flash of grassroots involvement. Indeed there was a lot of talking about grassroots involvement but not connected to our heritage. A lot of talking of bringing in new jobs and investment too but not a mention of tourism. There is money in our heritage and passion from the “grassroots” which is just as marked in Sheffield as it is in the rest of the country but has yet to be part of any local politician’s ideas for a “vibrant city” People like old buildings and feel passionate about it to sign petitions in the thousands. The majority of small to medium businesses are in historic buildings. Many rely on the historic character to attract customers, others starting new businesses gravitate to the old buildings because of cost, proximity to similar businesses they have is a unique building that stands out from the rest, and easier to fit into the local community. The vast majority of startup businesses start within listed building.

We three didn’t get any real answers to our questions. I didn’t expect any. What I got from the experience is that we have a long way to go to any local politician seeing our heritage as an economic asset or anything we should be worrying about when money is in short supply. It is seen more as a vanity project when there is money coming in rather than something that can generate money. That needs to change.